Dungeon Crawl Classics

An outgrowth of the OSR (Old School Renaissance) movement, which has given birth to many games that clone early versions of D&D,Dungeon Crawl Classics focuses on evoking the tone of early D&D before the solidification of fantasy as a genre with well-known tropes.

The game is written with D&D veterans in mind, and the massive rulebook incorporates hundreds of illustrations created in the style of 1970s fantasy roleplaying.

Here’s how the publisher describes DCC:

Return to the glory days of fantasy with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Adventure as 1974 intended you to, with modern rules grounded in the origins of sword & sorcery. Fast play, cryptic secrets, and a mysterious past await you: turn the page…

Three Things About Dungeon Crawl Classics

Old School Style: The DCC rules draw heavy inspiration from early versions of D&D but are intended to create a freewheeling style of play rather than copy a particular D&D ruleset.

Zero Level: Player characters start at 0 level, rather than 1st level, and players are encouraged to create two or three of them, because it is likely that at least one will die before reaching 1st level.